Carlos Reichenbach: Relatorio confidencial (2010) - full transcript

- Okay?

- Okay, you can go.

Let's start.

Your name, please.

My name is

Carlos Oscar Reichenbach Filho.

I was born in

Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre.

But I came to São Paulo

practically with 4 months.

I was born practically by chance.

A little before my due time.

I was born on

June 14th 1945.

Impressions of that

Rua Tão Augusta, or

(A short introduction to the world

of the "augustiniense man")

It was Luiz Sérgio Persson, as a teacher

who found, from the very first moment

right in the first semester,

I remember very clearly.

He said one day in class,

the only one who's going to be a filmmaker

is going to be that fat guy

with glasses there.

I even looked back!

I didn't think I was fat.

And he said like this,

"if you want your scripts filmed,

learn how to direct."

And that, was the great stimulus

to the art of filmmaking,

It was via Persson.

It was Persson who put it into my head

that I should be a director.

I said to Persson,

"I have a very big problem,

I'm very shy.

I don't like people, I have a problem

in relating to a lot of people."

"But that, you can learn."

"That you can learn."

He was very passionate.

A fantastic figure,

extremely passionate.

"You have to stop being blasé."

Then he discovered that I wasn't blasé,

I was shy.

"You have to go to the street, get drunk,

get some women at the Boca do Lixo."

He was very direct.

He carried everybody to the premieres,

it was a horror.

He carried us to watch

All the Women in the World,

at the previews.

We left at night there

with Dionisio Oliveira.

Both of us stuffing our faces.

Anyway, he said,

"You're going to direct a short film."

That's fine.

"Then we'll start development,

I'll give you some cans of negative.

We'll call Oswaldo Oliveira,

teach you a little bit of photography."

It started out with his team,

to help us.

Glauco Mirko Laurelli

accompanied the editing.

That was the team he worked with.

I told Persson, "I hate documentaries,

I'm not going to do a documentary.

I don't know how to do that."

He would say,

"Yes, you will."

"Do some research.

Take an easy subject,

something Paulista.

Do something nearby."

And so Rua Augusta was born.

"Make a film about Augusta Street."

I don't like documentaries,

nor do I like Augusta Street.

And now I’m going to make

a documentary about Augusta Street...

That's how the documentary was born,

he produced it.

This street is so commercial.

But then I discovered an

absolutely fascinating person.

He was the one who gave me the key

to be able to make this documentary.

It was a figure,

a kind of iconic figure,

those that always interested me,

the marginal figures.

There was a primitivist painter,

who lived in Augusta Street,

exhibiting a painting

absolutely blasphemous.

He was Waldomiro de Deus.

He painted Our Lady in a miniskirt,

Christ in swimwear...

Priests with little boots.

He did a mixture of religious things,

But during the present days.

He used to walk down Augusta Street

wearing a miniskirt!

What a fantastic figure.

And there, in fact, I found the key

to what this film could be.

We were making it with tips,

negative leftovers.

We shot some nonsense

in Augusta Street.

But the things that caught my attention.

We were lying prostrate in Rua Augusta

with the camera stopped,

and then a guy dressed as an Arab appears,

looking like a Tuareg.

On top of a van.

The guy making some signs

down the Rua Augusta.

What an aggressive thing,

what a violent thing.

In that place,

it looked like a scary thing.

Ask the guy to take a turn here,

and we filmed the phenomenal journey

of this strange figure.

This Arab, who should be in Bom Retiro

and not here on Augusta Street.

This figure, drifting there in the middle.

That was going on,

this search for drifting figures.

Let's take the most modern nightclub

of the time, which was Inferninho.

A place where the exceptional

figures of the time would mingle.

There was a crazy queer dancing there,

he was a fantastic figure.

There was an aggressiveness in there,

in the middle of Augusta Street.

A guy mumbling

like a madman in there.

These are the figures for me

that were absolutely fascinating.

The film was made like this,

in that completely

uncharacterized street,

already very mercantilist,

by those figures on the margin.

That's what got me excited about filming.

This film, when seen today

with the proper distance,

is a film about Waldomiro de Deus.

About this difficulty

of rising out of the nest.

This street is so womanly.

The film was made like this,

Saturdays and Sundays, when Persson

made the camera available to us,

the negative ends.

So I centralized the action of the thing

on the stimulus of Waldomiro de Deus.

Who I think was the most

interesting figure in the region.

Absolutely interesting,

who was later to become an icon.

He left, went to France, and has now become

one of our greatest artists.

Of the primitivist painters in Brazil.

The most important.

We stopped filming

and nothing happened.

Then Persson asked,

when are you going to finish this film?

And I said we had no money

to finish the film.

"Then I will raise some money,

so you can finish the film.

But then you'll have to finish it anyway."

This happened a year and a half

after I left the São Luiz School.

After neither he nor I

were at São Luiz.

"But you have to finish it,

there is all the material filmed."

Two years later, I opened a company

called Xanadú Productions,

with Callegaro and Antônio Lima.

I said, "Lima, come here.

Take a look at my material,

and help me write a text,

as official as possible."

We are going to make a documentary

like Primo Carbonari.

That was the contradiction of the thing...

it was not in a mocking way.

It was like a parallel reading

to those images that were filmed.

I was editing with Jovita Pereira Dias

who had been Glauco's assistant.

We didn't have the money

to pay an editor of that caliber.

So we took the assistant,

Jovita was the one who rode with me.

I was editing Audácia!

my episode in that film,

"The Balladissima of the Tropics

X The Sex Picks".

Which you screened.

"Jovita, come finish the film,

because Persson is on my leg

and I have to finish it."

I made a quick arrangement with her.

Because the film ended up

winning the first State Government

competition for short films,

which still exists today.

Do you know what it is?

We were the first class to get it,

plus the post-production.

So I was able to pay Jovita,

pay the lab, you know?

I remember asking,

"I want to get the narrator

with the most powerful voice.

Who is Primo Carbonari's narrator?

Ah, Oswaldo Calfat.

Is he there?

Then call Oswaldo Calfat."

Oswaldo came to read the text,

and I said:

"Read this in the most institutional

way as possible."

The elegant stores,

the high commerce,

the sophistication,

the elegance of the people.

They make this street

the place where you mix

eccentric types,

not always of the upper bourgeoisie,

with their usual occupation.

Window shopping.

Keeping up with fashion.

Not always buying.

Having tea.

Meeting Ricardo

with his new girlfriend.

The movie takes this tone.

Which is a tone of irony.

It gets more serious as

towards the end.

And it sets the idea when

Waldomiro de Deus leaves Brazil.

I think, in a certain way,

the end of Esta Rua tão Augusta

defines the end of my next films.

They all end with people leaving.

If they don't end, in a certain way they

define themselves by people leaving.

On June 15, 1969,

Waldomiro de Deus traveled to Europe.

Taking as luggage his

irreverent painting.

I myself underestimated this film

for many years.

I regarded it as a chance film.

It had no importance.

And it ended up taking on an importance,

not for me, but because

it is perhaps one of the few

documents about this region,

at that time.

For me its importance, was in being

somewhat premonitory

in relation to the disappearance

of these exceptional figures.

It's very difficult today for you

to find such a persona.

Interesting personas and,

at the same time,

as drifting as Waldomiro de Deus.

This indifferent street.

To the painter, to the painter's paintings.

To the mini-skirt of the painter.

To the painter's life.

To the painter's friends.

This street that snobs

the painter's painting.

A painter who paints

Christs in miniskirts.

Saints in monokinis.

Popes in shorts.

Friars wearing modern boots.

Parties in heaven and on earth.

You will see the result

of nine months of work,

spent in the creation of the great

cinematographic impact of the year.

LILIAN M.

Lilian M. is what I consider

my second feature film.

Until 1970,

I had made two episodes

and two feature films.

Alice in "As Libertinas" and

"As Baladíssimas dos Trópicos"

X As Picaretas do Sexo, in "Audácia!"

Which I don't think are feature films,

they are episodes.

They are almost short films.

I didn't define...

I always say that, for me,

at that moment,

especially after I left São Luiz,

life and cinema are very mixed.

I thought that living was

more important than making films.

Experimenting.

In August, 1974,

in the studios of Jota Filmes,

director Carlos Reichenbach

and his team

were looking for the ideal actress for

the title role of their new film.

I became partner in an

advertising production company.

The advertising service Jota Filmes.

Which has an interesting practical side.

Good. Nice.

It gave me a lot of technical practice.

It was the moment when I refined

my knowledge as a cinematographer.

When I started at São Luiz

I didn't know how to deal with people properly.

I learned this in practice,

especially working with teams.

Leading teams.

Sometimes as a director,

sometimes as a director of photography.

Commanding teams,

I learned the delights of a drifter's life.

Of community life.

And bringing into practice

a bit of my world's political vision.

How, in fact, to take the whole

anarcho-libertarian character,

the libertarian thought, and bring it

to coexistence, to daily life.

To experience it on a daily basis.

The practice of putting order

without being noticed.

Without it becoming a fetter,

an unpleasant thing.

And advertising was the first world

in which I could not bring

this notion into my daily life.

Lilian M.

I had wanted to make a film,

a few years earlier

that would be a kind of a Justine,

that would start from this idea

of a woman who

passed from hand to hand,

that would transform herself

as she passed through each man.

As if she took the diary

of a chambermaid.

It had a bit of a Buñuelesque

thing going on.

But it was still a project,

not developed as a script.

As always, I start first

at the treatment, or pre-script level,

where things start to be defined.

But one thing I have been stimulating

from very early on

even in my screenwriting courses,

that is never to worry

developing the pre-script.

without focusing on the dialogues

in order not to waste time.

Which is a very curious thing.

Because, for example, "Lilian M."

won the award for best screenplay

and it is a film that in truth

had no script, it had a pre-script.

Just like "Anjos do Arrabalde",

a kind of crazy thing.

Films that won

the Best Screenplay Award,

and were shot with a pre-script.

Well defined in the pre-script.

I defined the whole episode.

I knew what conditions I had,

and I had to write

for those conditions.

I know that it is a film

that will be made in blocks.

This week I have this negative

and this crew to shoot.

The next week and so on...

So the first block,

is this woman in the countryside.

The second block is her coexistence

with the industrialist.

The third block is her coexistence

with the torturer.

And it was developed this way.

And it was filmed this way too.

I filmed for five days,

and stopped for three, four weeks.

Then I would come back.

What did I need?

I needed an actress.

I needed an actress

who would be at my disposal

during those two, three, four months

that I was going to shoot the film.

And that was the big search that I went for.

On the recommendation of

my old friend and colleague,

actor in"As Libertinas",

José Carlos Cardoso,

also an actor in "A Mulher de Todos".

Theater actress Celia Olga Benvenutti

was the only candidate who fulfilled

all the requirements for the role.

He told me about an actress

who was considered

one of the best students

at the school of dramatic art,

Celia Olga Benvenutti.

I said okay, but I wanted to

do some tests with her.

I had already understood that

to make that film, I had to do everything.

Be a photographer,

camera operator, etc and so on.

This film was made with a

leftover family inheritance.

Leftover negative material.

I wanted to hire this woman,

do the tests and so on.

And then I realized really

I had a gold nugget in my hand.

Are you a little nervous, Miss...?

Lilian.

Would you like a cigarette?

- No, thank you.

- Please, this will calm you down.

I had to have a genius actress.

Although for the male characters,

I have actors in the film.

What I essentially wanted

was to work with a few guys.

The German industrialist, for example,

was a film director

and director of photography,

Edward Freund.

And the guy who played the salesman

was an actor,

but essentially a voice actor, in Eliot Ness,

in Robert Stack's "The Untouchables".

The business today, my dear,

is land, land, real estate.

Wilson Ribeiro, excellent.

I called an almost relative,

he was practically raised as a cousin,

a person with whom I sympathized,

who got along well with my parents,

Benjamin Cattan.

A great friend.

I called Benjamin to do the industrial.

I would rather have a thug at home

than a dancer son.

It was the stepmother's fault.

The guy who plays the farmer,

was one of the best

camera assistants in São Paulo,

who should be an actor,

was Caçador Guerreiro.

With Walter Marins,

Wilson Ribeiro,

with Cattan,

you could be more explicit

in a certain sense.

I used to ask, really exaggerate things.

I remember speaking

with Walter Martins,

"Now you are Zé Trindade.

"Now I am talking to a guy

who likes chanchada."

Who is an actor with an eminently

Brechtian formation.

So you can have a

completely different relationship.

One that extrapolates.

- Did you rent?

- I rented.

But you have to buy.

- Money is never left over.

- But it has to.

What a beautiful chuchu orchard.

Chuchu!

It is a sign, not a character,

it's a sign.

Now mix it with chanchada.

We are going to go crazy for real here.

Let's become Zé Trindade.

Where are the women!

Where are the women, get it?

That debauched thing.

Where is Mr. Jose?

He's not here, young man.

He’s really not here?

No, sir.

There are actors who are

essentially movie actors,

like Sergio Hingst.

Would you move in with me?

Will you take care of life?

If you promise

not to impregnate me.

But I want to have children.

I'd give them my name.

You're such a poor man.

Come here.

Biáfora's favorite actor,

who has this image

that makes a big impression,

which is Biáfora's room.

That underling,

the civil servant

par excellence.

The subservient figure,

almost mediocre that,

at the same time, has a strength.

In contrast with the

wonderful character,

who is the extraordinary actress,

Maracy Mello.

Maracy Mello was an actress

essentially of cinema.

An actress with a cinema discipline.

Who also had this strength.

She had to have something kind of...

She was a character who worked a lot

the question of death.

She had a physical connection with death.

It was essential to find

an almost Japanese actress.

With a transparency, right?

A translucence.

I really wanted

this character of the sister

of the civil servant

to be this link to dead things.

That it was a character that suddenly

is being calcified along with the house.

But at the same time she doesn't age.

She keeps her features

as if she were still a girl.

Those almost youthful features.

In the eyes you can see a maturity,

but the rest of her features are as if

she was preserved in formaldehyde.

Especially the texts are too long,

it had to have a mournful tone.

As if on the outside she is fine with life

but inside she is dead.

There was strange warmth that, sometimes,

in the late afternoon, appeared.

The prayers that my late aunt

on her deathbed,

before she stopped believing in God.

To drive away the devil.

Of the bricks that looked like bones.

A character who had

a fascist nostalgia, the industrialist,

who had an anguish for death.

And another who has a fascination with it.

Without being an obvious thing.

I think this was something

that the actors also brought.

That was the essential choice.

I remember it was fascinating

to film this, too.

The assistants were absolutely

fascinated by that character.

Walking through the house

as if she was an apparition.

And the house is really hers,

The other one feels more and more

on the margins of that house.

That was an essential thing in the film.

She was a stranger in there,

a stranger who remains

a stranger until the end.

Until they sting each other,

in which she says that

she doesn't belong in this world.

If I belong, I'll become a zombie.

Like this woman

so young and so dead.

The good actor doesn't hunch,

the good actor gives you an allowance.

An extra to work with.

He doesn't go the other way.

He takes your path

and goes forward.

He doesn't back down,

nor does he go sideways.

I think that this is a collaboration.

When I was a cinematographer

I was very conscious of this.

I didn't go filming for myself.

I always tried to find

the chromatic taste of the client.

I would show films, pictures, paintings.

"Do you like this blue?

Is it the blue you imagined?"

I filmed the first part, the whole part

involving her on the farm,

and at the end of the film also,

which goes around.

Then we shot the Cattan part,

then we filmed the part

of the German industrialist,

and finally the part with Sérgio Hingst.

That was the last part, inclusive.

The last segment.

And as we were filming,

me and Inácio Araújo...

Inácio Araújo was the editor of the film,

and a great friend of mine.

He started working in editing

as an assistant.

The first film he made

as an editing assistant

was "Corrida em Busca do Amor".

In that period we became very good friends.

We would take the film,

shoot the first part

and already pre-edited it.

So if you miss something

you would still have time to do it.

The creation of the film does not end

at the end of the shooting.

Even on the last day of mixing

I can change the whole film.

I am open to tinkering

with the whole film.

If it's necessary.

The editor, for me

is not just a complement,

it is an essential part.

For me, perhaps the second

most important thing in a film.

This is the moment when I need

a person of extreme confidence.

A person in whom I trust completely.

To tell me, too much is too much.

It's either too little or too much.

Inácio used to say,

we wrote many scripts together,

that, in fact, his function

was to bring me down to earth.

“Let Carlão fly and

I'll pull him down when he starts.”

“If I let him, he'll go.”

You don't want to change that name?

How about Paula?

I don't like it.

Alice.

Horrible.

How about Silvia?

No.

What was your mother's name?

My mother? Lilian.

No, not that one.

You're not going to name yourself Lilian.

There were some great things that

were never included in the film.

In the final cut of the film.

The participation of Jairo Ferreira

was remarkable.

He played a sailor.

He played a sailor who spoke

with an onomatopoeic language.

He spoke only in noises.

As he did that language

subtitles would come in.

As if it were a translation

of another language.

That was a wonderful idea,

that later... This was filmed!

At that time they didn't make

a colored editing copy.

The films were edited

in black and white.

You only saw the color film

when the first copy came out.

The only thing that you,

as a cinematographer, received

were two frames from each scene.

These were guides with which

you had control over the film.

It was very crazy.

Because of this there were

very curious things that happened.

Which obviously had

to be solved during editing.

There was a set that

was set up in the studio,

for which called a motel decorator.

"Decorate this here like

if it were a nice motel."

A lot of the industrialist part

was filmed on this set.

I already had the bathroom ready,

so we tinkered with the set.

We were filming with advertising junk.

I needed those scenes.

Those four years of torture,

of coexistence, taught me

how to deal with the structure of a studio.

The last script decisions

were made according

to the resources I had.

So a lot of things, for example...

When I had a great actor,

a guy who could memorize

a text like no one else,

like Cattan,

a trained actor like him,

I would put a text in his hand.

These texts were sometimes

defined overnight.

Because what I found provocative

was to have an almost minimalist character,

who almost doesn't speak,

a female character,

who lets herself be involved

in the male discourse.

The film starts with a woman

who doesn't talk with her husband.

She works, fucks, sleeps,

wakes up, works...

They have that dynamic,

they don't talk,

they touch each other with their clothes on,

they have sex with clothes on.

The husband doesn't know his wife's body.

He gets to know it in the end,

she is the one who subverts it.

When that guy arrives talking nonstop,

that traveling salesman.

Then, obviously, I got a good actor,

Walter Marins.

An actor with an academic background.

Then I said, detonate the text here.

I'll give you the lines inside,

but you improvise.

I couldn't define it.

There was a certain moment,

which was great,

now you will have

to make a synthesis,

of the fascination of capitalism.

Then I took an informative text,

like real estate banking.

Memorize this here.

The synthesis of capitalist brutality.

But of course it will get better.

Now, because of the treatment

that you have given me,

I'm really not going to leave here

without selling you something.

- I'm not buying anything.

- But you don't have to worry.

You give a small part in

small part in cash.

And the rest in chuchu.

There were things that were added

at the time of the shooting.

For example,

I thought that the famous

Ruy Barbosa's famous speech

was a synthesis, you know?

I still know this text today.

I got a book to get to

know this text better.

The text that made this guy

the best orator of the country.

This guy in the sauna pissing off

everybody that is next to him.

Memorize this text, speak this text,

while stretching here,

waiting to be served.

"No!

Brazil is not the clubbing, gambling

and of pandering to the livestock farmers,

who have seized its fortune,

and want to treat it the way libertinism

treats the momentary

companions of their lust."

No!

Brazil is not this collective

collective gathering of perverted creatures,

that you can run over,

without the slightest impression,

the breath of the aspirations

that agitate humanity.

No!

Brazil is not this nationality

cold, delirious, cadaverous

Which receives on its forehead

the stamp of a clique.

As the tattoo of the lover,

or the chalet, on the back,

the fleur-de-lis of the executioner.

That's a text I've memorized.

It was done overnight.

I had to have actors who knew

how to memorize the text.

That was by meter.

I wanted the character of Cattan

to be an industrialist in crisis.

An Industrialist with a crisis of conscience.

What's worse...

Who does the whole surplus value speech.

In our case, for example,

despite our philanthropy.

Of our voluntary contributions,

of our civic spirit.

We put in a great part of our effort

working for the national economy.

The nation works thanks to

to our financial funds.

And leave some characters

extremely laconic.

The German Industrialist, for example,

he hardly speaks.

He only says slurs in German.

I dubbed them, by the way,

because I couldn't

afford a German dubber.

But how I have heard this

during my whole life.

I just kept repeating it.

Did you sign any papers,

any documents?

Yes, including some deeds.

And then you took some?

I made the down payment.

I told you not to sign anything,

not to pay anything.

But what am I going to do?

He is irresistible.

What is the book that synthesizes

modern consumerist thought?

The philosophy of getting along.

Something that already

bothered at that time.

Indisputably, Dale Carnegie.

"How to Make Friends

and Influence People."

So I took a summary of that book,

I did it overnight.

And I gave it to Wilson Ribeiro,

"Are you happy?

Being happy is an art.

Being happy is like tanning leather,

polishing a diamond..."

The bullshit that is in this book

that sold more than potato water.

More than rice and parties.

The question of so-called positive thinking.

- Are you happy?

- Once in a while.

Being happy is an art.

And you have to practice it.

Being happy is like tanning leather,

polishing a diamond...

And the way to deal with it consists in...

It became

an accumulation of ideologies.

And this woman going

from man to man.

Until she fell into the hands of a bureaucrat.

A civil servant.

Everything regulated inside,

who has a strange coexistence

with his morbid sister.

That woman who leanerd a lot and

went through everything on this journey,

with every man she lived

a borderline experience,

this woman returns to the farm.

She comes back to see her husband's body.

She makes her husband discover his body

and then takes the road again.

Because she can't stay there.

We were going through

a period of censorship.

Very though.

What I feared the censorship

was going to cut

was on the character of the German.

There was no parameter

with the censorship.

And you agreed with all this, Lilian?

But I didn't understand these things.

At that time I thought that a trick,

should be paid with a bigger one.

Do you remember, man?

We covered it.

That industrialist who disappeared.

Yeah, Hartman disappeared.

Funny how time

makes us forget things.

That character was totally inspired

inspired by Henning Albert Boilesen.

A German who finances

the torture apparatus in Brazil.

I could only show that as a metaphor.

Otherwise the film would be

banned immediately.

But it was a very clear metaphor.

I had spectators who had passed

by his hands and said, "That's Boilesen."

For anyone who knew the figure,

it's crystal clear.

Although Boilesen doesn't appear,

there is no mention of DOPS or anything.

There is a certain moment that...

I didn't film it outside the DOPS

because it was too blatant.

The German industrialist orders

the torture of the squatter inside.

Any good connoisseur

will understand that.

Don't do this to me, no!

Orson Welles said that he couldn't

separate politics from crime.

I have a more of a Marcusian view.

I couldn't separate politics from sex.

I film the body to show the soul.

I think "Lilian M." is a summary of this.

Seen today it is even a prudish film.

I didn't dare that much.

Maybe the most daring sequence,

not from a political point of view,

but in terms of nudity,

is the orgy with the father and son.

With the mistress in bed.

In fact, it is a lesson

the boy teaches his father.

It's a really aggressive thing,

it was on purpose.

It was meant to shock, to punch

the audience in the stomach.

But it is the only moment

that I feel in the film

that censorship could touch or not,

and it did.

12 years later,

the BBC in London

bans the torture part.

What...

What did they do?

With me?

My morals!

Where are my morals!

My morals!

It made sense deep down

to work with metaphors.

Although they were clear metaphors,

but they were metaphors.

For example, the prostitution class

is not a prostitution class.

It is a dance class.

Now you are going to learn

those Latin rhythms.

The conga!

And I don't know what else.

It is time for Brazil to play

the Hawaiian rhythm.

The most ridiculous thing ever.

The two women in Hawaiian clothes,

with the notion that this is Brazil.

More metaphorical

than that is impossible.

The musical vision is already

there in advance.

I shoot thinking with the music.

I didn't do this in

"Corrida em Busca do Amor".

Because I didn't have the conditions for it.

But when I made "Lilian M."

half of the film was shot with the music.

Live and in color.

Jairo Ferreira used to say

something very funny.

"Carlão makes films to exorcise the hundreds

of records he inherited from his father."

It was all filmed with playback.

There was no direct sound.

Everything was filmed with playback.

Half of the film was shot with playback.

Half of the film.

I took a Nagra there

and released the music on the spot.

I would use a Nagra, a little sound box.

And we film like that. Why?

Actually, I learned very early on,

especially with "Lilian M."

where I could put that into practice,

is that even my chief machinist

did great travelling shots.

And I love a travelling shot.

Cinema is travelling for me.

He does it within the rhythm.

So the truth is that since

"Corrida em Busca do Amor"

many sequences have been conceived

in the relationship between

image and soundtrack.

There is a whole sequence

that I made sure to do

almost as a joke

with the ending of "O Anjo Nasceu"

by Julio Bressane.

The guy has just closed

a deal with this woman.

He sells her a

squatted piece of land.

He goes out dancing with her,

gets in the car, drives away.

He goes to Conchinchina.

The music goes on and on and on.

If you that the music out

that scene becomes unbearable.

But it was filmed with that music.

It had to end with the last chord.

Because the rhythm of the music

determines the tempo of the scene.

It's the movement of the music.

Optical sound had its limitations.

At the time of the mix,

some sounds disappeared.

That is, it was recorded, it was mixed.

For example, the scene of the crash

between the car and the truck.

I never heard that sound.

Because in the optic that sound was gone.

The sound was so loud,

that it exceeded the limit of the optical.

When you took the magnetic

and transported it to the optical,

you put a limit.

We put a limiter.

Anything that goes past that limiter,

it cuts out.

It doesn't register.

Until today I never heard the crash.

It's that the music comes on top,

that's what saved the scene.

Dona Maria, he's a criminal!

Your husband is a scoundrel.

An asshole.

A piece of shit who doesn't

understand anything about life.

- Your husband is a lowlife.

- Shut up!

Shut up, you're dead,

I'm in charge here.

Now, who's ever seen a man

let his children go hungry.

He's a turd.

Shut up!

Who are you to tell me to shut up?

Shut up, you're dead!

I'm in charge here.

José!

José!

Dona Maria, don't do this, for God's sake.

I want to go away.

I want my children.

I want to go away.

The biggest influence for this film,

comes from the Japanese directors.

This film, in fact...

What moved me to make this film

was my passion for Shohei Imamura.

And other Japanese filmmakers,

like Eizō Sugawa

Who are filmmakers of reference,

of my background.

But it was Shohei Imamura especially.

With "Insect Woman", "Secrets of a Wife"...

And a director, who was considered one of the

most feminine directors in Japanese cinema,

Yoshio Yoshida.

And also Yasuzo Massumura.

Yasuzo Massumura made films

about the feminine universe,

especially the universe of women

exploited by men.

Prostitutes, factory workers, etc.

There was this thing of seeking

the maximum dignity in these lives.

Based on an economic

and carnal aspect.

Massumura said something fantastic,

that guided "Lilian M." a lot.

There is one thing that

we cannot forget, he said.

That greatly influences

the feminine vision of the world.

More than in men,

in the feminine experience,

in all important female experience,

blood is present.

The menstruation, the birth,

the abortion, you know?

Very curious to think about that.

Only a Japanese to think about it.

This was kind of defining for me in the film.

More than the question of desire,

evidently I'm talking about it and of the body,

the discovery of the body.

This character gradually discovers that

little by little she has a body.

That this body is also part of her, even if

she has not perceived clearly,

it was already part of

her connection with the farmer.

This guilty relationship with the body.

That it becomes explicit in this

coexistence with other men.

At some moments, being used even

as a guinea pig in torture experiments.

There's a line where she literally says,

"Two shocks, two checks."

Everything comes in with

a money relationship in between.

She goes from

luxury prostitution to the streets.

But she always comes out with

integrity of these relationships.

That's the greatness of Massumura's films.

This dive into experience.

This is nothing new in this film for me.

The character in "Alma Corsária"

is similar to Lilian.

The poet in "Alma Corsária" is just like Lilian.

He gets into every problem

in the movie, to learn more.

That is the keynote of several other films.

The blonde in "Falsa Loura".

The mixed-race girl in "Garotas do ABC".

These are characters that get involved

without fear of making a mistake.

And did the box office do well?

At that time, there was something

that was essential for the existence of the

of the so-called average Brazilian cinema.

That was the additional box-office prize.

The film had more than 500 thousand spectators.

What any average Brazilian film

did at the time.

Any average Brazilian film

in the 1970s had 500,000 viewers.

But for me, the first financial return came

by that additional box-office prize.

Because any film that did up to

500 thousand spectators received it.

I lived on that Additional Box Office

for practically two years.

Films that did at least 500,000,

because you had films that did 6 million.

You have two movies that did that.

Yes, yes.

You don't have much comparison

today in relation to this.

Doing 500,000

spectators at the time

is today more than a million.

Deep down, you don't have

many parameters of comparison.

I repeat, the ticket cost

the same as a bus ticket.

The C class frequented

Brazilian cinema with assiduity.

And that's what ended.

"Lilian M. Confissões amorosas,

relatório confidencial"

Nothing was forbidden to her.

And she knew and dared

everything.

Don't miss it.

Carlão, what about the

short films you released?

All Brazilian short films

had to accompany a foreign film.

The choices were very crazy.

Everybody was waiting that their

short film would go with a Spielberg.

A short that, I don't know,

would be with Empire of the Sun.

And there was a profit,

the films were profitable.

So that's why some producers

began to produce short films.

And then I was invited by Galante

to make some short films.

"Don't you want to make some short films?"

“Sonhos de Vida”.

“Sangue Corsário”

“Nem verdade nem mentira”.

And “M da minha Mão”.

The “M da minha Mão” I don't call it a film,

I call it a filmed testimony.

Mário Gennari Filho,

what was your first success?

"Casinha pequenina",

in Baião rhythm.

When was it recorded?

1950.

Can you tell me

who is the author of this song?

This music is public domain.

Unknown author.

Mário Gennari Filho was a composer

fundamental in my childhood.

Mine and Jairo Ferreira's childhood.

It was also a childhood in the periphery,

periphery of the time.

I was raised in Jabaquara.

Jabaquara at the time

was understood as periphery.

And I used to go to the

amusement park in the periphery

I used to go to amusement parks

that had a huge loudspeaker.

"João offers to Mariazinha from the pharmacy,

the "M da minha Mão", by Mário Gennari Filho."

It was a song of my childhood.

And of my life in the periphery,

for many years.

Not only that music, but especially

the accordion instrument.

The instrument that made

so successful in the 1950s

and was despised in the 1960s.

The accordion is Luiz Gonzaga's

instrument, let's not forget.

You can never despise it.

Talking with Nelson

in one of those debates

that the greatest influence he had in his life

was Luiz Gonzaga. For me too.

I spent my whole childhood listening to

Luiz Gonzaga, Mário Gennari Filho, Mário Zan.

The accordion was the instrument

that was part of my childhood.

It is part of all my films.

All my films have at least one song

played on an accordion.

The accordion was the instrument

that was part of my education.

- What kind of audience you had?

- The youth.

The youth of that time.

Maybe the youth now

no longer accept this.

At that time it was hit music.

I wanted to detect what was

the atmosphere of his compositions.

At that time, all kinds of audiences

liked this music.

There was no rock, no disco,

nothing like that.

So the youth loved this kind of music,

Bolero, Baião...

"M da minha Mão"

is a filmed testimony.

Because of Jairo Ferreira.

The conception is mine,

but the interviewer is Jairo.

I was filming.

He asks a lot of questions.

What was the first success...

In fact, Mário Gennari Filho became known

as a musician and performer,

playing "A Casinha Pequenina".

- Can we hear a little piece?

- Of course.

He composed some classics

of that time, like "Baião Caçula".

"Velho Romance."

And "M da minha Mão",

which made a big impression on me.

So I made a point

to buy the rights to the song

when I went to do "Dois Córregos".

In "Dois Córregos" the record even appears.

It is a tribute.

It's been almost 30 years, do you

still remember "M da minha Mão"?

Yes, how can I not?

It is the only document that exists about

this great Paulista composer.

That is Mário Gennari Filho.

Who composed some of the most beautiful

and essential pieces of the Brazilian chorinho.

"Baião Caçula" is a classic.

And I managed to record it

while he was still alive.

It didn't win the short film certificate

because Mário Gennari appears

playing in a nightclub.

I wanted to show him today, alive.

So at the end of the film there is a thanks

to the restaurant where he was a partner.

There is no publicity, The name

of the restaurant doesn't appear.

Everything was a reason

for them to veto it.

And that is why the film

was never shown in theaters.

It was never seen.

His son and daughter

have never seen the film.

I met his children,

when I released "Dois Córregos".

When did the accordion start to become

become an outdated instrument?

About 15 years ago.

More or less.

Although I think

it is coming back again.

What are the reasons for this?

The reasons for coming back?

Today they are creating new sounds.

The accordion has been for a long time

without having any opportunity.

Today the accordion has something

that can be taken advantage of.

If there is something important about this film,

it is that it is the only record of Mario Gennari alive.

Active,

and performing his pearls.

Perhaps "Sangue Corsário" is the first film

made in Brazil about the counterculture.

Bringing out the beatnik poetry.

The avant-garde poetry.

The blasphemous poetry,

the strong poetry,

of a great friend.

The poet Orlando Parolini.

He was an actor in some of my films.

As well as theater actor. Playwright.

He had a theater group that was very

connected to the dramaturgy of Ionesco.

To the theater of the absurd.

In fact, the group was called Ab Surdo.

A whole life hanging.

Galleries of reinforced concrete.

Everything is done, and nothing remains.

A scream, hands that clasp

in a last gesture.

Hyenas spewing benevolence.

From the high poles, seeing in us

an end that we postpone.

Until the next night and

to another, to another, to another...

Before I met him in person,

I already knew who he was.

Parolini is a mythical figure of São Paulo.

He looked like a prophet.

Dressed in an almost

ostentatious way.

Long hair, a huge beard.

He was dressed in some weird clothes.

Franciscan sandals.

People stared at him.

Parolini was avant-garde

before the vanguard.

He was beatnik before beatniks.

Hippie before Hippies.

Whenever it became fashionable,

he had already left.

He had already moved on.

He was a very important figure

in my cultural upbringing.

Especially for Jairo Ferreira.

Of other people too.

You were the first Hippie in Brazil.

When the Hippie movement began,

you were already in another.

You left everybody without

understanding anything.

With you, I did my my time in hell.

I met the visionaries.

The Damned Poets.

Nerval, Blake, Henri Michaux. Poe.

Fernando Pessoa.

Mário de Sá Carneiro.

Baudelaire.

Apollinaire.

"Let's go to Paulinho's house, Paulinho

brought some concrete music stuff."

I had never heard of it.

It was the first time I heard it in my life.

At his house.

Japanese poetry.

He was a guy very connected

to the avant-garde.

A very up-to-date guy.

So much so that he became my friend,

a very good friend of mine.

An actor, and protagonist of my films.

Films like “Amor, palavra prostituta”

or “Império do Desejo”.

And the character in “Alma Corsária”.

I wanted to make a documentary.

How to film Parolini's poetry?

I wanted to make a film about Parolini.

Showing his poetry.

Making the film also from

the point of view of a drifter.

Making, at the same time

a film about São Paulo.

This is what "Sangue Corsário" is about.

For this I used two fictional characters.

It was very funny that, years later,

a very similar encounter happened.

With Jairo and Inácio Araújo,

in the street, a guy arrived

"Carlão, how nice to see you!"

"You are still an artist."

"I am now a banker."

Fuck, but isn't that “Sangue Corsário”?

It was an exact match.

These are two guys who lived

the 1960s intensely.

They meet again in the 1970s,

The film was made in 1979.

It was shot in one week.

Very fast.

Two, three days.

The characters are the poet and the banker.

They are two guys who meet

each other in the Metrópole.

At a spot that Orlando frequented.

At one point, he was known as

the poet of the Metrópole Galleries.

He instituted the poetic

pamphleteering in Brazil

Poet!

He took photocopies of his poems.

And he distributed them on the Viaduto do Chá.

The cops on one side, and Orlando

distributing blasphemous poetry on the other.

Like "Perdição", which he recites there.

Which is a poem about a generation.

I wanted to make a film about Parolini,

but without anyone realizing

that I was making a film about him.

So he plays this character in the film.

And he has this meeting, two guys

who then are friends in the 1980s,

him and Roberto Miranda.

They were my fetish actors.

A banker who meets the poet,

and who ends up doing all the time

an elegy to the poet.

"But you were 20 years ahead!"

You know what I thought was silly

in 1963, when you kept talking about

about atomic bombs.

You were right, man!

Our generation was born

under the sign of the bomb.

That's why your poetry

is visionary and generous.

You anticipated a lot of things.

And always fell out of the picture

when things became fashionable.

When, at the time of the Jovem Guarda

tried to get the bourgeoisie to swallow

a bomb in the White Bear.

You were there.

And you sent your message.

Jorge called you a prophet, remember?

The film ends with him

reciting his poems.

He says the one that is his

most beautiful poem,"Perdição".

Which he talks about

this lost generation.

The first beatnik in Brazil.

I filmed him on top of a van.

With all of São Paulo passing by,

with the wind blowing in his face.

And the guy foaming, crying.

Almost screaming.

His poetry was very visceral.

It's really pamphletary.

Willingly talking about a generation.

1964.

Because I am sorry

I will cover my head with ashes

I will wash my feet with holy water

with shards of tiles I'll scrape the epidermis

because I am repentant

I will fill my mouth with pebbles

I will flog my back

a sackcloth around my waist

the sex will bind

the kidneys cushioning

in cross open arms I will fast

7 days 7 nights

eating unleavened bread of Jews

honey locusts

for I repent

I'll know St. John's Avenue

or Evangelista I don't know

and in the first public square I will undress

I came to bring this strength.

I threw the guy in the middle

of the Praça da Sé.

Reciting poetry in key places of São Paulo.

Only who walks, like me and like him

know well these points of the city.

In the middle of the people

in João Mesquita Square.

This encounter is punctuated by

free praise from the banker.

It is the praise of the guy

who envies this freedom.

You have been through everything.

You did theater, cinema, collage.

Criticism, poetry.

Until, at the end of the film,

the guy gets on his nerves.

"He says, "Damn it, stop bugging me."

"You have to understand something,

it doesn't matter what I did."

"The most important thing is what

I didn't do. What is yet to be done."

I did all those things you said.

The most important is not what I did,

it's what I failed to do.

And what is yet to be done.

And the guy goes one way

and the other, the other way.

And a Rolling Stones song comes on.

"Let it Bleed".

It's the key to the film.

Nothing more counter-cultural

than that ending.

And finally, it records

a period of counterculture.

Paths that were separated and that

meet in the middle of a crossroads.